The mayor has denied wrongdoing.
NEW YORK: US prosecutors on Thursday charged New York City Mayor Eric Adams of accepting illegal campaign contributions and luxury travel from Turkish citizens who wanted to influence him, ending an investigation that has thrown the government of America’s largest city into turmoil.
In a 57-page indictment, prosecutors revealed an alleged scheme dating back to 2014 that helped finance Mr Adams’ 2021 mayoral campaign and provided him with free rooms in luxury hotels and meals at high-end restaurants.
In return, Mr Adams pressured city officials to allow the country’s new 36-story consulate to open despite security concerns, prosecutors said. The Democrat faces five criminal charges, including conspiracy to commit wire fraud.
Mr. Adams, 64, denied wrongdoing and said he would fight the charges in court. He said he would not step down.
“I will continue my work as mayor,” he said at a news conference, where some in the audience called on him to resign.
Turkey’s foreign ministry and presidential office and its embassy in Washington had no immediate comment.
Earlier on Thursday, federal agents searched the mayor’s Gracie Mansion home on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, according to a Reuters witness. About a dozen people in business attire were seen walking around the mansion grounds with briefcases and duffel bags.
Mr. Adams, a former police officer who rose to the rank of captain, is the first of the city’s 110 mayors to be criminally charged while in office.
He could be removed from office by Democratic New York Governor Kathy Hochul, but the process is complicated, said Bennett Gershman, a professor at Pace University Law School.
‘Hidden contributions’
According to the indictment, Mr. Adams accepted tens of thousands of dollars in free travel from Turkish Airlines while serving as Brooklyn Borough President and paid $600 for a two-night stay in a luxury suite at the St. Regis Hotel in Istanbul, far less than the actual cost of $7,000.
For his 2021 mayoral campaign, Mr. Adams concealed campaign contributions from Turkish sources by receiving them through American citizens, the indictment said. Those funds allowed Mr. Adams to qualify for an additional $10 million in public financing.
“This was a multi-year scheme to curry favor with a rising New York City politician,” Damian Williams, the top federal prosecutor in Manhattan, said at a news conference.
Prosecutors say Mr. Adams responded to Turkey’s concerns.
The indictment said that acting at the request of a Turkish diplomat, Mr. Adams pressured city safety inspectors to allow the country’s new 36-story consulate to open in time for a visit by Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan in September 2021, even though it had failed a fire inspection.
After Mr. Adams sent repeated messages about the building, a senior Fire Department official allegedly told his subordinate that he would lose his job if he did not allow the consulate to open.
When the Fire Department approved the building to open later in the day, Mr. Adams notified the diplomat, the indictment said.
The diplomat allegedly responded, “You are a true friend of Turkey.”
The indictment said Mr. Adams also performed other favors. Before serving as mayor, Mr. Adams allegedly severed ties with a community center in Brooklyn that the diplomat said was affiliated with a hostile political movement, according to the indictment.
Shortly after he takes office in 2022, an Adams staffer assured The Diplomat that the new mayor would not make any statements on the 1915 massacre of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, which Washington has called a genocide.
Mr. Adams said he is aiming for a public lawsuit to defend himself. “If it’s a matter of foreign donors, I know I don’t take money from foreign donors,” he said.
Top officials resign
The case could complicate any bid by Adams to run for re-election in 2025, as other Democratic politicians, including New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, plan to challenge him.
U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a Democrat, called on Mr. Adams to step down. But Representative Hakeem Jeffries, a Brooklyn resident who serves as the top Democrat in the House, stopped short of doing so. “I pray for the well-being of our great city,” he wrote on social media.
New York has been in political turmoil for the past month. Police Commissioner Edward Cabán resigned on Sept. 12, a week after FBI agents seized his phone. A few days later, Mr. Adams’s chief legal adviser also resigned. On Wednesday, David Banks, the head of the city’s public schools, said he would retire at the end of the year, after The New York Times reported that his phone had been seized by federal agents.
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